'Everything Is Disclosed': <br> The Poems of the Pope

Poem excerpts from the official English translation of Pope John Paul II's 'Roman Triptych.'

Part I The Stream

What are you saying to me, mountain stream? Where, in which place, do we meet?Do you meet me who is also passing -just like you. ...If you want to find the source,you have to go up, against the current,tear through, seek, don't give up,you know it must be somewhere here.Where are you, source? Where are you, source?

Part IIMeditations on the Book of Genesis

At the threshold of the Sistine Chapel Those to whom the care of the legacy of the keys has been entrusted gather here, allowing themselves to be enfolded by the Sistine's colors,by the vision left to us by Michelangelo -so it was in August, and then in October,of the memorable year of the two Conclaves,and so it will be again, when the need arises after my death.

Fulfillment - Apocalypsis

The End is as invisible as the Beginning.The universe emerged from the Word, and returns to the Word.Right at the heart of the Sistine Chapel, the artist shows this invisible Endin the visible drama of the Judgment -And this invisible End became visible as the high point of clarity:ominia nuda et aperta ante oculos Eius.*The words recorded by Matthew, here become the painter's vision:``Come, you who are blessed ... depart from me, you accursed'' ...And so the generations pass -naked they come into the world and naked they return to the Earthfrom which they were formed.``From dust you came, and to dust you shall return'';all that had shape into shapelessness.What was alive is now dead;all that was beautiful is now the ugliness of devastation.And yet I do not altogether die,what is indestructible in me remains!

*From the Latin: Everything is disclosed and revealed before his eyes.